<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Composure by everylemon</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25448974">Composure</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/everylemon/pseuds/everylemon'>everylemon</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Final Fantasy XV</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Brotherhood: Final Fantasy XV, Gen, sleepy noct</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 08:46:52</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,443</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25448974</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/everylemon/pseuds/everylemon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Noctis was sprawled out on the couch reading a comic book. No headphones. He didn’t look up as Ignis entered, took off his shoes, and gently (not with a bang, that would be childish) shut the door. Nor did he look up when Ignis walked over to the couch and hovered over him.</p><p>“Noctis,” Ignis finally said. “Didn’t you hear me?”</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Noctis Lucis Caelum &amp; Ignis Scientia</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>97</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Composure</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Ignis clenched his fists outside Noctis’s apartment door. Then, he checked himself and unclenched them. No frustration. No impatience. He willed them away.</p><p>His mentor had told him to imagine himself breathing out his anger, releasing it into the wide blue sky. Ignis felt more like he’d kicked his into a closet, but it would have to do for now.</p><p>He was working on it.</p><p>Ignis swept his hair from his eyes before knocking on the door again. No answer. He kept his face smooth in defiance of a frown; he’d been practicing eliminating these stray emotional giveaways.</p><p>Worry prickled up the back of his collar, but he breathed that away, too. Noctis likely had his headphones in with the volume too loud.</p><p>He knocked for the third time, louder. Nothing. Pounding on the Crown Prince’s door seemed irreverent, as much as Ignis wanted to. <em>(No, no, he didn’t want to — he shooed that feeling away.)</em> He used his key.</p><p>Noctis was sprawled out on the couch reading a comic book. No headphones. He didn’t look up as Ignis entered, took off his shoes, and gently (not with a bang, that would be childish) shut the door. Nor did he look up when Ignis walked over to the couch and hovered over him.</p><p>“Noctis,” Ignis finally said. “Didn’t you hear me?”</p><p>Noctis gave a noncommittal grunt, listlessly turning the page. Anger — no, annoyance — <em>no, nothing</em> bubbled up inside Ignis. He swiveled on his heel <em>(slow down)</em> and walked to the kitchen, which was obviously a mess of wrappers and energy drink cans and wadded-up napkins and <em>NOTHING, LET IT ALL GO, SOMETHING ABOUT A SKY . . .</em></p><p>He was working on it.</p><p>As Ignis silently resigned himself to cleaning the kitchen, he wondered how Gladio managed to deal with Noctis. A couple years ago, Gladio had been the one who thought Noctis was an <em>ungrateful little punk who never put in the effort or cleaned up after his damn self</em> (Gladio’s words, of course). Now, Gladio just shrugged it off when Noct tried to blow off training or made a dumb mistake. Granted, he still put Noctis through the wringer when he tried to slack off, but Noctis never seemed to <em>get</em> to him.</p><p>Well, he <em>got</em> to Ignis these days. At the Citadel, Ignis was busier than ever. He was learning. Contributing. Treated as if he belonged there, in his own small way, in a room full of the leaders of his nation.</p><p>And then he came to check in on Noctis, and he was stuck cleaning up half-eaten bags of crisps and being treated to teenage mopes and moods and complete indifference — <em>NO. Stop. Sky. Blue sky . . .</em> The crisp packet Ignis had been strangling crinkled as he unclenched his fists.</p><p>Meanwhile, Noctis had begun to snore on the couch, still in his school uniform.</p><p>Well, fine. Ignis would let him. Like Gladio said, he needed to stop babying the kid.</p><p>He gritted his teeth and set to wiping down the counters. Next, he swept the floor. And then, just to prove how much Noctis’s slacking <em>did not affect him in the slightest,</em> he very helpfully found Noctis’s history book and left it on the table, open to the chapter Noctis was being tested on tomorrow. He fished the history notebook from Noctis’s bag and flipped it to the page of notes from today’s review.</p><p>For all Noct turned slacking into an art form, Ignis had to admit he took excellent notes. Never at Council meetings, of course <em>(’Why should I take notes if you’re just going to give me the notes?’)</em>, but he always had neat pages of notes after class, with boxes drawn around key terms, dates circled, and stars next to things he’d need to review for exams. Prompto found them extremely useful for cribbing.</p><p>Ignis fetched a bowl, a spoon, and a box of cereal to leave next to the notes so that Noctis could study over breakfast the next morning. It wasn’t his job to do it for Noctis, just to make it easier for him to do his own very reasonable set of tasks that <em>should not be so hard to just —</em></p><p>The ceramic bowl clattered as Ignis shoved it onto the table. Noctis’s snoring hitched. Ignis held his breath, and a moment later, the snoring continued.</p><p>Ignis rested his arms on the table and leaned forward, bowing his head. He was annoyed at Noctis, and he was annoyed at himself. He’d always prided himself on his composure. It was, after all, a prized virtue within House Scientia. But lately, it was slipping.</p><p>He sat down in the chair, took off his glasses, and rubbed his face. When he straightened up again, he noticed something about the page of notes in front of him.</p><p>While each section started out in Noctis’s blocky handwriting, it eventually went sloppy, then became illegible, and then just sort of . . . trailed off. And then, the next line would be back in the same neat handwriting. But the pattern repeated three, four times on the dense page of notes.</p><p>Was Noctis <em>falling asleep in class?</em></p><p>Ignis felt a surge of anger, but he was ready for it this time. <em>No,</em> he told the anger, <em>You are not helping now. Come back when I actually need you.</em></p><p>Deep breath. Blue sky.</p><p>Ignis frowned.</p><p>If Noctis was falling asleep in class, it was happening while he was actively taking notes, not staring out the window daydreaming. Something about that didn’t sit well. He thought a moment, then texted Gladio: “Did Noctis train with you this morning?”</p><p>Then, he finished washing up, stopping on the way out to throw a final withering glance at Noctis. Noctis failed to be chastened, as he was still snoring.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Ignis had just made it inside his car in the parking garage when his phone buzzed with Gladio's reply: “No weapons w King R ysterday”.</p><p>It took Ingis a moment to translate the text (Gladio did it just to annoy him, he texted Noctis with perfect grammar) into actual language: Noctis hadn’t trained with Gladio today because he’d done <em>spectral weapons training with King Regis</em> yesterday.</p><p>Ignis considered this.</p><p>With the Wall weighing heavily on King Regis (some whispered it was already slowing him down), he had begun training Noctis in storing and summoning weapons and supplies within the spectral realm, as King Regis himself did for the entire Kingsglaive. While Noctis obviously needed to learn this skill, the unspoken piece of this was that eventually, Regis would lose the energy to train Noctis as the Wall sapped more of his strength.</p><p>Ignis had watched the first time the King had tried to teach Noctis how to do it. Noct had hit stasis and promptly passed out within the first 10 minutes. Regis had seemed entirely unsurprised, merely scooping up Noct from the training hall floor and depositing him on a bench outside.</p><p>"Should just be a few minutes," he told Ignis, rumpling a fond hand through Noct's hair.</p><p>Ignis blushed and looked away — not that it mattered, as Regis wasn't looking at him. "He'll be tired tomorrow, though," the King continued. "And I don't envy him the headache. But I will move my calendar around to train with him again the day after next, if you could let him know, please, Ignis." At the end, Regis had looked up at him for the first time.</p><p>Ignis nodded. "Your Majesty, should I have been scheduling more magic training sessions for him?"</p><p>Regis chuckled. "No, Ignis, he did just fine. In fact, rather well. I passed out immediately the first time I ever tried. Noctis actually got a dagger in — and almost back out, too, even if that's what took him down."</p><p>"I see," Ignis said with a slight bow. "I did not realize it was so taxing."</p><p>"Oh, he'll be able to do it in his sleep after a while. It's just building up those . . . hmm, not muscles, but it’s hard to describe." He gave one last fond look at Noct — who had been much more loveable while unconscious lately, in Ignis's opinion — and stood. "Goodnight, Ignis."</p><p>"Your Majesty."</p><p>Ignis sat down with a book on the end of of the bench until Noctis propped himself up on an elbow with a groan. "That sucked.”</p><p>"Your father said you did very well for your first try." Ignis flipped the page and placed a bookmark before closing the volume.</p><p>"Don't remind me I have to do it again," Noct had muttered, running a hand through his dark hair.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>For the next few weeks, Regis had pulled Noctis aside whenever he had time and energy to spare. Apparently, Noct was making great progress with putting things *into* the spectral realm, but getting them back *out* was proving harder. He’d started vanishing gaudy, ornamental weapons, which both gave him practice with something bigger and wouldn’t be missed by the statues that normally wielded them in the hall.</p><p>Also, it amused Clarus, who lugged the most most ridiculous pieces he could find into the training hall.</p><p>Ignis still hadn't really understood the process. Then again, he didn’t need to. Ignis would eventually be able to draw his own weapons based on Noct's power, but only a royal heir could access the spectral realm. Which was apparently incredibly draining.</p><p>So draining, Ignis reflected as he sat at the wheel in the dark parking garage, that Noct was falling asleep in class the day after practicing. And then falling asleep on the couch before he'd even eaten dinner.</p><p>Damn.</p><p>Ignis leaned back into the seat and breathed deeply. Then, he unlocked the door and got out of the car. He could at least make sure Noct made it into bed. Even if he was tired. <em>Especially</em> if he was tired. “Tired” wasn’t supposed to affect how he did his job.</p><p>By now, the sun had set in earnest and the street had emptied of stragglers going home from work. This part of Insomnia was mostly office buildings. Restaurants and shops catered to the morning coffee and business lunch crowd, then closed up early.</p><p>Ignis took the elevator back up, holding the door for with a jumpy-looking kid carrying takeout boxes. He was outside Noct’s door, fishing the keys out of his pocket, when said kid slammed him hard against the door and stuck something heavy and metal against his back.</p><p>“Gimme your wallet or I’ll shoot,” the mugger croaked, voice breaking halfway through. His breath smelled like cheap liquor.</p><p>Ignis considered several things at once. First, this was a dumb kid he could easily beat to a pulp. Second, he had a gun, but likely very little idea how to use it. Third, those first two facts made this situation infinitely more dangerous than if this had been a professional.</p><p>A professional would do things that made <em>sense</em>. An amateur would spook and hit the trigger unpredictably.</p><p>A bullet fired wildly in the hallway could easily travel through a wall. Unacceptable risk to Noctis and the other civilians in the building. Unnecessary publicity likely requiring Noctis to move back into the Citadel, where he would be, if it were possible, even less bearable.</p><p>Therefore, Ignis settled on a course of action: Do whatever he could to get the mugger out of the building without firing a shot. This would require sacrificing his own dignity, which was, of course, acceptable.</p><p>Ignis sighed internally. “P-p-please! Don’t shoot! I’ll give you everything I’ve got!” Better for the kid to feel in control. He thought a moment, then trembled slightly for effect.</p><p>“Then you hold still while I get your wallet.” Tough guy voice this time, good.</p><p>Ignis rolled his eyes, as the mugger couldn’t see them. “O-o-of course. Take anything, just don’t hurt me.”</p><p>The kid shoved the gun (and it did feel like a real gun, unfortunately) roughly into Ignis’s back while he groped in Ignis’s pockets with the other hand. It was taking a long time.</p><p>Oh. He didn’t have his wallet; it was in his briefcase, in the car.</p><p>Damn. This complicated things.</p><p>The kid seemed to have realized this. He thrust the keys to Noctis’s apartment back into Ignis's hand and moved the gun to the base of Ignis’s neck. “You’re gonna open this door, go get your wallet, and move very slowly, or else I’m gonna b-blow your brains out.”</p><p>Well, so much for avoiding combat. There was no way he was opening the door. “O-okay,” he stammered, then braced himself to disarm his assailant while hopefully also not getting shot. He bent his head over the door, hoping he'd ease up on Ignis's neck, but alas.</p><p>But before he could execute a disarming maneuver of dubious value to his own safety, he and the mugger were both thrown backwards as the door burst open with sudden violence.</p><p>Ignis’s head banged against the hallway wall, but he recovered in time to see the mugger scrambling on the floor for the gun, which had been knocked out of his hand — and Noctis, face hardened with a rage Ignis had never seen before, holding a gargantuan bejeweled axe above his head.</p><p>Noct swung the axe down neatly between the mugger’s outstretched fingers (lucky bastard kept them all) and the gun. In the next instant, Ignis was on top of the kid, pinning his scrawny arms back in a very uncomfortable position. With his other hand, he snapped his phone open and pressed a number on speed-dial. “Yes, in the hall — no, discreetly, it’s under control — just some kid with a gun trying to make a buck, not a direct threat. He doesn’t need to know where he is.”</p><p>A second later, the door across the hall swung open to reveal a huge, bald man in a fluffy white bathrobe, who took all of three seconds to handcuff the would-be-mugger (who was by now openly crying), hoist him up off his feet, and steer him towards the elevator.</p><p>“Cheers, Ignis,” the guard said with a wave behind him. "Sorry, was in the shower."</p><p>“Remember, he doesn’t know—”</p><p>“Yeah, yeah, we’ll give him the normal work-up, don’t sweat it. And I’ll replace the doorman.” The elevator doors closed.</p><p>Ignis exhaled and turned back to Noctis, who was already sprawled back on the couch inside. Then, he turned to examine the weapon in the hallway. “Noctis, did you <em>summon</em> this?” he asked, yanking the giant axe out from where it was embedded in the floor. It had previously belonged to a statue of a particularly ugly ancestor. “Impeccable time to succeed at —”</p><p>It was then that he noticed Noctis was snoring.</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>